I'm so tired as I write this. Not only have I only gotten barely 4 hours of sleep last night while on duty but I got to work a 20 something female who decided to shoot herself in the head because she and her boyfriend were fighting. When we first arrived she was lying face down on the living room floor, her long brown hair matted in congealing blood and her respirations gurgling slowly, too slowly, in her throat. The blood was soaking the carpet and a red river was oozing into the floor vent. We rolled her onto her back and behind her ear was a hole which extruded fresh blood and a creamy, fleshy mess. It was her scrambled brains. Unfortunately, she was young, her heart was young and it didn't want to die. Her heart wanted to live and didn't understand that it was pointless now that her cerebellum was a left over egg breakfast.
We did our best. We worked the call because it's not our decision regarding who lives and dies. I placed a tube in her trachea to control her breathing and my partner started an IV. But in the end it didn't change the forgone outcome. She successfully killed herself and we all got to witness it.
This was my late morning yesterday. We had just ordered our early lunch but didn't get to eat it until 2 hours later. Fortunately, every shift isn't like this. New paramedics are eager to see the horror of people but after so many years you prefer not to see these things. If you don't have to witness it then there will be less horror in your own brain. I'm both blessed and cursed with an excellent, occasionally photographic memory. Certain things will never leave it.
You are a stronger person then I am. I am heart broken just reading about it. I honestly believe some people think they get a do over they do not understand that dead is dead.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that people let things affect them so much that they may not CARE that the end is the end. I will pray for her family, and the boyfriend. It's those left behind that suffer the most.
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